La Vie à Lyon

Hi all, Erika here. Life in Lyon has been an almost completely positive experience. While Lyon is the third biggest city in France, it is incredibly easy to navigate, while still offering so much on every street. Finding your footing couldn’t be easier with the two major rivers here, since finding one of those when lost gets you back on track quickly. The busses and metros here help big time as well, when you have a general idea of the city, finding your stop is simple. I got here a week before lectures started to get a feel for the city, and have a little time before classes started. This ended up being a great idea, since I found out the day before I arrived that my orientation for Institut Paul Bocuse started the day after I got here. This ended up being a much better way to get my bearings, since I met a lot of other new students, and was given information from the teachers at the school. The school itself is great. I paid for my meals before I left, and got a badge that I can scan at the café and restaurants on campus and the money is taken out directly from there, so there’s no fear of going hungry if you forget your money. Lunch and dinner on campus is usually a 3 course meal, so the only time I need to do grocery shopping is on the weekends, unless I’m going to one of the many restaurants here. The classes are long, and they’re almost always doubles, which ends up being 3 hours in total. The days are broken up well though, with a 15 minute break every hour and a half, and about 2 hours for lunch. My apartment is a 10 minute bus trip from campus, and the busses go every 10 minutes usually, so it’s a handy commute in and back every day. The social life here is great, there are loads of bars in the city to suit everyone, heaps of restaurants, school-organised events, and there are regular house parties too with the other students. The cinemas here generally offer films in English, where I unfortunately sat through ‘Dune’, but the pints after made up for it. During the day I’ve tried to get to a good few patisseries, and on free days I’ve managed to get out to a couple of the surrounding towns, which are beautiful. Annecy is a must visit for anyone. Time’s been flying and there’s not much more to go, but definitely plenty more to report before I go. -Erika.